YEP Letters: December 18

I read with interest the very lenient punishment handed down by the Labour Party to Cllr Andrea McKenna for the abuse of a disabled blue badge and subsequent attempt to quash the prosecution (YEP Wednesday 16 December).

This begs the question of what a two month “suspension” actually achieves?

Clearly the matter has had very serious implications, and one would think she’d have the integrity to stand down. Hanging on like this is damaging to the reputation of the Labour Party, Leeds City Council and her ward.

As for her promise to “continue to represent the people of Garforth and Swillington to the best of my ability as I have always done”, I’ve lived in the area for over 30 years and have never clapped eyes on her. Not that any of it matters ultimately. If Cllr McKenna fails to respectfully bow out, I’m sure my fellow residents in Garforth will be handing down her long overdue marching orders next May!

‘We are not targeting destitute people’ you say, ‘we are targeting people who are making a living effectively from professionally begging’ (how do you know which are which, clever clogs?); they are just ‘pretending’ to be destitute’, you say; actors, that is, you are saying. I have asked around. Not one of them answers to the name of Larry or Judy or John. No! I do not think they are acting (and if they were we should be publicly funding them as a worthy attempt at outdoor theatre). And I do not think you care whether they are or not.

I think you must have been brought up in nice clean nurseries, scared by nice clean nannies to the tune of ‘Hark, Hark, the grubby dogs do bark, the pretend beggars are coming to town’. I think you are concerned only to keep the streets clean and clear and ‘nice’ for the ‘nice’ money makers. You try making £100 a day, comrade, sitting on a wet pavement in the rain and drizzle with obviously inadequate clothing for maybe eight hours; that is £12 plus an hour; that is £1 every five minutes. That is rubbish.

So that is what your Christian culture (is that is what it is meant to be?) means by the Good Samaritan – slap a parking ticket on the beggar? Is that how you face the mindless poverty, hatred and terror of yesterday and today and tomorrow? Why not bomb the beggars? Assad would; and Hitler gassed them.

Crocodile tears over cuts

B Duffy, by email

In response to Councillor Mulherin’s letter,(YEP December 11) over the closure of care homes in the city, isn’t the truth of the matter this Labour Council always chooses the issues that will embarrass the government the most?

How can she cry crocodile tears over the ‘savage austerity cuts,’ due to Labour’s incompetence, when her own colleagues have sanctioned the spending of £30 million on a cycleway that nobody wants and is and will, cause chaos for the vast majority of travellers? There will probably be a dozen cyclists each way in a day’s rush hour, if you’re lucky, despite what all the ‘consultants’ tell you!

People have not forgotten the two care homes closed by LCC due to lack of funds to update, on Leeds/Bradford Raod and Kirkstall Road, which then were able to be used to house ‘refugees.’

The Labour government imports at least four million immigrants into this country, mostly young people who have large families and what does Leeds Council decide? Get rid of excess child places and close down existing schools!

Result, a wild scramble for places in decent schools and the poor, as usual, are left with the bog standard sink schools.

Do we want another layer of bureaucracy with an elected Mayor and entourage weilding heavens knows what extra power and control of even more money to squander? I certainly don’t!

Pointless criminality

Aled Jones, Bridlington

What hope is there for crime levels improving when we have grinches stealing festive fir trees from forests, garden centres, shops and even town centres?

This is becoming a dangerous country to live in when people have no respect for the sacredness of Christmas whatsoever. If we went back to the so-called brutal days of National Service, we wouldn’t see so much pointless criminality.

Rising cost of housing

Ernest Lundy, by email

Just read a great piece of news to do with the housing market! That is to say if one is a Premier League soccer player or otherwise very wealthy.

According to the National Association of Estate agents the average price of a home will reach £425,000 by 2025. £931,000 in London.

Rents will go up by 25 per cent, to £171 a week, £314 in London. How on earth will the average worker be able to afford such prices?

In spite of the propaganda they put out from time to time, the market is already much slower than banks and building societies would wish it to be, due directly to the faux pas they made in the recent past. Even before their risk-taking and negligence prices were rising faster than sustainable by ordinary families.

It has always been apparent that due to their vested interests, the same institutions have had a tendency to talk up prices in misguided optimism, hoping for better returns; while ignoring the effects on those looking for a home.

The public at large is not entirely without blame, having indulged in climbing the ladder of ownership of homes of greater value for the sake of profit.

Enough is never enough for some, a weakness of we humans; failing to realise that every action has a reaction, in this instance a bad one.

Better minds than mine have said that nearly all commodities, salaries, holidays etc, result from the cost of houses.

Of course by 2025 things may be different, but we have feel sorry for our children’s children who, like the rest of us in the past, may be looking for a chez nous they are able to afford.